


Curtain Call

by CloudAtlas



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M, Meet-Ugly, Sort of? - Freeform, Yoga Instructor Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 12:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17867078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: Clint Barton has a problemWritten for the prompt:You’re the neighbour that keeps their curtains open, even when changing, and I can’t talk to you without blushing.





	Curtain Call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gsparkle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/gifts).



> Written as part of the be_compromised Valentines Mini Promptathon. Unbeta'd (for now).
> 
> Also, this is my 100th fanwork on AO3! Amazing.

Clint has a problem.

Okay, Clint has many problems, many of which are at least twenty years too late to fix if Kate is to be believed, but in this case Clint is referring to one _particular_ problem that’s only become a problem in the last three months.

Namely, the woman who’s move into the apartment over the road.

Initially, she hadn’t been a problem at all. In fact, Clint hadn’t even noticed someone had moved in for the first two weeks. But then… well.

See, in possibly the most perfect example of poor city planning, Clint’s front room overlooks the bedrooms of the apartments over the way. He can see into the bedroom of a four year old girl who has an alarming amount of dinosaur teddies, a couple who painted their walls an alarming shade of orange and old lady with at least seventeen cats. And now, he also can see into the bedroom of an _unfairly_ attractive woman with a replica Degas (thank you Kate) on her wall. And that’s _fine_ , that’s completely fine.

Apart from, while the little girl and the couple and the old lady have fully embraced that wonderful invention that is the curtain, the unfairly attractive woman had demonstrably _not_ , which meant that Clint once came home to see her stripping down to her panties before just _standing there_ , facing the window, as she messed around on her phone.

He’d like to point out that the fact that he only stared at her for about thirty seconds is testament to his awesome will power.

And then she’d _done it again_ , two days later and then a week again after that.

So now Clint lives in perpetual twilight thanks to keeping the curtains in the front room shut at all times. Which, again, _would be fine_ , if that very same unfairly attractive woman wasn’t now also taking the yoga class he runs at the local gym.

He can’t look her in the eye. He can hardly string two words together in front of her. He’s low-key terrified of touching her when helping her with her poses. It’s _awful_ , made all the worse by the fact that she is even more unfairly attractive up close, and funny and interesting to boot.

Obviously, he only knows that because he’s overheard her talking to her hot-friend-with-a-ponytail, and her hot-friend-with-the-cute-smile, and Darcy on the front desk (who is also hot). She hasn’t really spoken to him since the first couple of weeks, most definitely because of his aforementioned inability to act like a competent human being around her.

At this point he’s largely resigned himself to having her be an attractive but nerve-wrecking planet orbiting on his periphery, her largest impact on his life being his twilit front room. He can live with that. He’s a mess anyway, it’s only to be expected.

So it’s definitely a surprise to find her hanging back in class one Tuesday afternoon.

“Um,” Clint manages.

“Look,” Unfairly Attractive says, “I’m really sorry for whatever I did.”

Clint almost swallows his tongue. She _absolutely cannot find out_ that he’s inadvertently seen her almost-naked three times.

“What?” he manages to choke out.

Unfairly Attractive looks kind of embarrassed – bashful, even. “I don’t – you’re…” she trails off before taking a deep breath and forging ahead. “I clearly make you uncomfortable for some reason. I can tell when you – ” she makes a vague movement that Clint takes to indicate him helping her with her poses. “I’m not… sure what I did. And I’d like to get past it? If possible? I like this class.”

Clint has the dawning realisation that he has to actually tell her what up or she might, like, _leave_ and not come back and that would be terrible… for the gym. Right. And also just generally make him out to look like a creeper. Sort of. It’s kinda her fault really. But still.

“Oh my God,” Clint says under his breath. Then, louder. “Okay. Um. I – I live across from you?” He does a quick sweep of the space to make sure no one else is going to hear this conversation. It’s embarrassing enough as it is. “Which I know because…” Deep breath. “My front room looks over your bedroom. And – and, you don’t have curtains.”

Clint cringes away, as if that will save him from the embarrassment somehow.

Unfairly Attractive looks a little like she’s been slapped. Her eyes are wide and her face is turning red and it’s like slow motion, watching the mortification sweep over her expression.

“Oh,” she says quietly.

They stare at each other for a moment.

“I’m going to – ” Unfairly Attractive jerks a thumb over her shoulder and then power walks out of the room.

Well, that definitely could have gone worse, Clint thinks.

 

Unfairly Attractive doesn’t turn up for two weeks and Clint gets concerned enough to risk opening the curtains in his front room to check her apartment, which is how he finds out that she’s bought curtains. They’re deep red and look like they could be velvet. There’s also an A4 piece of paper taped to her window with the word SORRY written on it, black sharpie capitals stark against the white.

Clint opens his front room curtains for the first time in three months as a result. It feels weird, after all this time. And, as if waiting that exact moment, Unfairly Attractive is back at yoga two days later, this time with a huge, hot, built, blond guy. Guys that built shouldn’t, in all fairness, be that flexible. Also, are all her friends hot? So unfair.

“I got curtains,” is the first thing she says to him as soon as the class had ended and everyone has left apart from the two of them and Built and Flexible.

“I noticed,” Clint replies awkwardly. He’s also noticed that after two weeks away, Unfairly Attractive no longer needs half as many pose corrections as she used to. He doesn’t question why. That way madness lies.

There’s a long silence, and Built and Flexible looks far too amused.

“Her name is Natasha, by the way,” Built and Flexible eventually says. Unfairly Attractive – _Natasha_ – hisses an angry, “ _Shut up_ ,” but Built and Flexible ignores her. “And your name is Clint, which I actually knew before coming here today.”

“Oh…kay?”

Natasha looks like she’s regretting everything. Clint is confused.

“She thought your building was condemned,” he continues. Clint attempts offence but, nope. He loves his building, but it’s undoubtedly a shithole. “She also thought her yoga teacher was hot.”

“I hate you,” Natasha says flatly.

“This is literally why you invited me,” Built and Flexible replies. He claps her on the shoulder and turns to leave. “Make good choices!”

“I don’t,” Clint says, “understand what’s happening.”

“Do you want to get coffee?” Natasha asks in a rush. “Or… or a kale smoothie, or whatever yoga teachers drink.”

“Coffee,” Clint replies, equally quickly. He’s a yoga teacher, not a masochist. “I mean, yes? Um.”

A little more staring occurs.

“I promise I’m not usually this useless,” Natasha says eventually.

Clint laughs. “I promise I really am.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You okay with that?” Clint asks after a moment.

Natasha smiles and it’s the first real smile Clint’s seen on her face since this whole curtain conversation started two weeks ago. Granted, he’s seen her twice in that time, but her smile is kind of noticeable. It lights up her face. He’s wanted it directed at him ever since he first saw it directed at hot-friend-with-a-ponytail.

“Yeah,” she says. “I think I am.”


End file.
